farewell letter

from the editor

Dear Readers,

Every year spring always brings with it blooming flowers, sunshine, and eternal hope. It’s a sign of new beginnings and a fresh start. For many of us, it is the end of the “best years of our lives,” and it is where our lives start to pivot into what we call “adulthood.” And of course, with every spring, is a new issue of Atlas. This semester, our theme for the issue is “Offbeat,” a word that we felt encapsulated Emerson and the community within it. It’s no surprise that to attend Emeron, you have to be that type of person. Expressive, creative, loud, and just a little offbeat. With each passing year, we grow into ourselves a little more and become more comfortable with those parts of ourselves to the point where it’s no longer considered offbeat, but instead it is just us. Through visuals and writing, Atlas aims to reach far and wide into what it really means to be offbeat. We’ve had very high highs and very low lows over these past few years. But together, as we slowly start to embrace the offbeat parts of ourselves, squeezing them so tightly until it and we become one, we can emerge as the best versions of ourselves we can possibly be. That is Emerson, that is Atlas, and that is the Offbeat Issue. While my four years with Atlas is coming to an end, this is only just the beginning. I look forward to seeing what lies ahead for all of us! With Love, Anna Moon Editor-in-Chief

Dear Readers,

This spring has felt so strange. It’s strange how fast the time seems to be going, it feels strange finding the psychological balance between the existential anxiety of geopolitical conflict and my own life. It feels strange navigating college in this perpetual pseudo-post pandemic world, and it feels so strange that this is the last issue I will be working on. As you probably know by now, Anna and I are both graduating in May. We wanted our last issue to be representative of Atlas, our creatives and the Emerson body as a whole and we came up with one word: offbeat.

This semester, we chose the “Offbeat Issue” not only as a diversion from our loud and bold previous themes, but as an ode to all of us at Emerson who proudly adhere to that descriptor, and a celebration of the quirks, flaws and idiosyncrasies that define our individuality.

Visually, we wanted to bring in a bright palette, since that felt appropriate for springtime. We have done a lot of softer and dreamier aesthetics in the past, so for design and illustration, we aimed for something that was playful yet bold– surreal yet deliberate. Our photographers this semester designed concepts around the intangible experiences of fun and whimsicality, with an emphasis on the model’s personality and unique style. Our designers took inspiration from Scandinavian design principles and quirky, modern aesthetics. We wanted the issue to remain visually cohesive throughout every section, and did so by employing some consistent color blocking and geometric motifs.

It feels bizarre that my time with Atlas is coming to a close, as it has felt sort of like my “labor of love” since the first semester of my freshman year. I am, however, so excited to welcome our current Photography Director, Rosamond Chung, into the role of Creative Director. It feels bittersweet leaving something that has become such a large part of my life over the last four years, but I can’t wait to see what the team creates next.

With Love,

Stella Drews-Sheldon

Creative Director